7:24 AM,
Jul. 19, 2013

Written by

bernie
badger

The South Pole telescope (or SPT) is a telescope designed to study a special kind of light: the Cosmic Microwave background. Built between Nov. 2006 and Feb. 2007, the SPT is the largest telescope ever deployed at the South Pole. The Cosmic Microwave background is a remnant of light from the earliest visible part of the universe.

Using the South Pole telescope, astronomers can explore the mysterious dark energy, which has been invoked to explain the observed acceleration of the universe's expansion.

Dark matter was devised to explain the excessive amounts of mass discovered in galaxies and ...